AI News, Pentagon Vs. Anthropic, Apple's Scary Acquisition w/ AI Leader Eugina Jordan

Anthropic pushes back on Pentagon disclosures and suddenly gets labeled a “supply chain risk” and that whiplash raises a bigger question than any single contract: who controls frontier AI when national security, surveillance fears, and corporate incentives collide? We sit down with Eugenia Jordan, founder of U Unified AI and a technologist with deep experience, to unpack what really matters beneath the headlines and why the “good vs bad” framing misses the complexity of modern AI governance.

We also zoom out to the AI arms race and the strategies behind the companies shaping it. We talk OpenAI’s rapid-fire press releases, Google Gemini’s late but loud surge, Meta’s aggressive push into AI agents, and the hardware realities that make NVIDIA and compute capacity unavoidable bottlenecks. When Meta acquires an agent-focused social network, we explore what it could mean if AI agents become a real layer of the internet, creating distribution, automation, and new risks at scale.

Then we get into the story that hits closest to everyday life: Apple’s acquisition of QAI, described as micro-expression tech that can infer intent. We debate the legitimate accessibility and product potential, but we do not dodge the privacy implications, the history of facial recognition bias, and the cultural nuance that can make “reading faces” dangerously wrong. We close with the rising costs of AI data centers, including electricity and water strain, and why communities are demanding protections so regular people do not bankroll trillion-dollar infrastructure through higher bills. If you care about AI ethics, AI regulation, AI privacy, and where the AI economy is heading, this conversation gives you both the urgency and the nuance. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with your take: where should the hard limits on AI be set?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Well, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Soul Tech with Cynthia. If you have been a fan of mine for very long, you know that I have recently been uh upgrading the branding, and we have shifted from the name uh glow up with shamanisis to Soltec with Cynthia because Cynthia is my real name, and that's what most people call me. And uh it just seems silly at that point, and of course, it all goes back to the Soltec Foundation and driving uh uh people's understanding of our goal to uh teach underserved communities how to succeed in the age of AI. So, welcome to the show, welcome to the show. I'm super jacked about today's episode because I have one of my dear friends and somebody I greatly admire on today's episode for us so we can talk about AI developments. The fabulous, fabulous uh Eugena Jordan from U Unified AI. Welcome, Eugenia! Thank you for having

Welcome And The Rebrand

SPEAKER_01 1:44

me. It's so good to see you. Eugen was kind enough to zip into Florida and give a fabulous TED talk recently. How did you enjoy it before we get to talking about AI?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I loved it because you were so amazing when you calmed everyone down, especially speakers, because everyone was so nervous, and you also made everyone in the audience um be kind. So because obviously there is so much going on and people come stressed, and you just put this uh kindness blanket on the whole

TED Talk Kindness And Community

SPEAKER_00 2:25

event, and that's why some speakers struggled on stage, and when they you know stepped down and when they came back up, the audience just cheered. It's because how you started it, you set the stage and it gave uh speakers courage, and the audience it gave them kindness.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, it did. I had a lot of people come up to me and say, You know that I was sitting there clutching my jacket and purse when you said that about like you think you're resting right now, but but you know, check yourself. So thank you for that, Eugenia. You did you did a wonderful job, and I know a lot of people have come up to me since um to ask who you are. Excuse me. I think they could tell we knew each other for uh longer than just a few weeks. Anyway, well, my goodness, I had to contact you holding. I've got to have some water. You know, here on this show, we're real. I'm not gonna pretend I'm not not in need of water. Cheers, right? Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for listening to that. Uh thank you. Because there has been so much news. I mean, there's gonna be for years now, there's gonna be so much news around AI, but recently there's really been some interesting things happening around the AI world. I asked the fabulous Eugenia um who owns 24 patents and her own fabulous AI company. Um, she's really uh someone to watch and to follow, um, especially if you're a woman who works in technology. And so I asked her if she'd come on the show and we could talk about it. And first on my list, honestly, and it's making the hair on my arm stand up because it's such a big story, is the Pentagon anthropic drama. If you guys have been had your hair heads buried in the sand, which happens to me occasionally too. Um uh the uh anthropic pushed back at the government when the government desired to use it for whatever they wanted, and they pushed back and said, no, we

Pentagon And Anthropic Contract Clash

SPEAKER_01 4:18

were not comfortable with giving you a blanket ability to use the software, and immediately um they were banned. I mean, what was that what you'd call it by the government? Supply chain risk. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so it was big news, please. I'm dying to hear your thoughts on this situation.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Very interesting because it blew up in a matter of days. They were negotiating, negotiating. They were awarded a contract last year, I believe it was $200 million, so it was all fine and dandy. And all of a sudden, within the matter of three days, because they didn't want to sign those two disclosures about mass surveillance, and another one, they got um they got called a supply chain risk. So, and what is interesting, when OpenAI signed their agreement, those disclosures were softened because obviously um Pentagon, and again, I'm not um I it just my opinion, they obviously didn't want another AI company say, you know what, we're gonna walk away. And what's interesting, Sam Altman even put on Twitter, he said um they Pentagon should offer Anthropic the same conditions and terms that they offered us. And what was also interesting, they still uh Pentagon used Anthropic's technology in the recent um in the recent um activities um in the Middle East. Yeah, so who knows what's gonna uh happen. To me, it was not about the technology, it was about control. And um people like Sam Altman, um, he realized that I um he might do some other things wrong, but in this particular scenario, he actually stood up for um what seemed, you know, the the right stance on this situation.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah. It's interesting. So I think that the conversation around this type of thing in technology is kind of um it's more complex than I think a lot of people realize. It's like they want to label things good or bad. Um uh uh last year I had uh a new American dream come out. That was my book about uh reigniting the American dream through artificial intelligence because we've had so many industries collapse. This is the first time in 20 years that outside of the tech boys, which are really 25 years old, uh it's the first time in a long time that we've had the opportunity to actually build a fresh new industry that could put the country back on the map. So I'm a big supporter of artificial intelligence, but like anyone else, I have a lot of concerns about some of the news that I see. And uh in this case, you know, I'm like a lot of people, I'm kind of torn because I feel like I'm a big supporter of the military. I believe every country should have a wonderful military that is well supported, well-armed, latest technology that our, you know, boys and girls are covered and protected as much as possible. While simultaneously, um uh already my phone can tell me what I'm thinking about that that I haven't thought about in 10 years. And all of a sudden it will occur to me while I'm walking back from the gym, and all of a sudden my phone will send me an ad for something I haven't thought of in a 10 years. And it's like I already feel like um like I don't have any privacy anymore. Uh and and you know, if we're allowed free reign with some of the the most advanced technologies, I mean, where where do we not become just cattle for for the powers that be? Um and then I'll you know, uh, and I and I'm I'm one of those people that can see both sides of that. That um I did I wanted to kind of like give anthropic a little bit like, oh look at you, you know, because that's pretty brave. I mean, government contracts are a big thing. They can keep a company stable when things are fluctuating, and of course, with AI, you know they are. Uh, and uh for them to make a stand on that, which I think I I saw called that we're in a conscience war and that anthropic stood their ground. Um, and then of course Sam Altman stepped in and a lot of people kind of gave him a little bit of craps, uh implying that you know he was just being a pushover to take advantage of the moment, but but I didn't quite get that from that. There they've all been in talks for a long time. So I don't know. I don't know. I mean, any other thoughts on that situation?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Um, so first of all, I want to thank all you know the servicemen and servicewomen, as you said, a lot of respect uh goes to them. So um, and on the technology front, obviously we need to provide them with the best tools and resources. Um, and what is interesting, you don't declare a supply chain chain risk a company that has headquarters in San Francisco, you just don't do it, right? It's reserved for China. I spent 25 years in telecom, it's you know Huawei, right? It's not a company in San Francisco, so it was a little bit um dramatic to me. So, and hopefully it will all blow over. The other thing is if us women we did those type of things, we would be called emotional, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Oh yeah, oh yeah, but when when men do it, they're strategic. And it's like, no, you guys are far more. I mean, all the wars are started by men. 92% of the murders and all that, the crime, men. So men, you guys are the emotional ones.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Exactly. So and that's why I've been looking about this situation, trying to look at the facts, and it's very hard to look at the facts because there is a lot of insults and emotions flying around. So it's been a couple of weeks, so the dust is settling, they are restarting the negotiations with anthropic.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

That's what I read again. Okay, that wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, we're in an AI war where we're in a you know war for people to get to the to be the countries to be the first to achieve the most they can with AI because they're gonna others, everyone else is gonna get left behind.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Exactly. So it's the US of China, and um it's you know it cannot be China because of the China 2025 plan. Um, so the only reason, in my opinion, they didn't succeed, it's because of COVID. But obviously, there is a new China 30 plan, maybe, or China 35 plan. Yeah, and our directions are very different. And China is going with more physical type of AI, robotics, cars. We're going with more type of, like you said, conscious AI, brain AI. So it's a little, it's not that, you know, hardware dependent. And we have the two best companies, four best companies. Okay, let's not exclude you know, Google Gemini, right? They're swooped in last year, boom. Um, obviously Anthropic, open AI, uh, Meta,

AI Race With China And Strategy

SPEAKER_00 11:44

um, that is doing some interesting consumer things in the AI space.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I I feel like Mark Zuckerberg is always chasing something. Uh it's like he comes up with a good plan. He always has to put the press release out before there's actually been any work done.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So you funny, like as a marketer, open AI puts a press release every single day. Like they're so if you go on their website, so for my newsletter, I I scan it every single day. And it's a the company or regulations or some sort of research. So kudos to them and you know their marketing team.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So you know I wouldn't do that as recommend that, but I'm thinking that they're using the press releases as a way to communicate to all stakeholders in one shot and not have to like do one thing for this person and the media, this person and their target audience, this and it's it that's actually really smart. I mean, since it's a lot, but but it makes sense, especially then when they can do it so easily now. Um, it's interesting. So uh, you know, when we name the list of the the the top people in AI, the um for me, I would say that was cle, you know, the anthropic and um open AI and uh I'm forgetting uh the new new uh the N1 with the uh oh the agents and the uh A NVIDI NVIDIA.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Oh NVIDIA, oh the chips, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I mean, like and just in terms of the people who are really who've gotten a lot of of attention, um it's been interesting to watch Apple, Google, and Meta kind of stri. I mean, they they were all positioned to be number one, two, and three. And because of, I think what happens in companies is the decision-making process or the desire to be the ones that create it yourselves instead of just going out and there and acquiring quickly, and they all were like dragging their feet or it's 10 different. I mean, I was stunned at how long it took Google um to really come up with anything AI-wise. And then Apple um has really been late in the game uh with their AI. Would you agree with that assessment?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yes, on Apple front, most definitely, because um they just selected Gemini to revamp Siri. So, and Siri being you know horrible and the features. I have the new iPhone, they're not that, you know, even like photo editing and everything else, they're not as great as the newer tools out there. So they're a little bit behind. Um so with Gemini, Google and Gemini and their AI features, yes, last year it seemed you're 100% right, it seemed that they were behind, behind, behind, you know, OpenAI announcing Sora, OpenAI announcing all other kinds of you know, incredible tools. And then somewhere in the fall, Google says, hold my beer, boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, and you know, I gotta give Grok a lot of credit. Um, I'm a I'm uh I I I Twitter, you know, that's where I that's where I vent. Um and I I I I at my age I have lots to vent about because you know, I see that you we as you get older, you see you really see things for what they are while while everyone around is going, do you think? It's like, yeah, I promise you. Um but uh it's been impressive to see. I like to use Grok for just a quick uh, you know, because it's it's less like edited than the other uh LLMs. Uh, you're not gonna ask it the truth of something and it will not ask it to be sarcastic and it really will be. Um and it also is really, really the fastest and easiest in terms of creating a quick image and then making it video. So I'm a big fan. Um, and anyway, I I I was curious um before we get to the next one, because we'll be talking about Apple next and an acquisition that they made. Um, what are what are some of the uh the AI news inventions that you're like most excited about or or that you're most concerned about, either one? Uh and I'm dropping that on you, Cole, without any warning, but I'm just curious. I know you, I know you do a lot of AI, uh you share a lot on AI on social media, so I figured you got this.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

So I so they uh I I have an AI newsletter, then I have videos, I post them, you know, on TikTok or Instagram. Um and what's it became

Big Tech Catching Up To AI

SPEAKER_00 16:37

so it started as my own research for my company because um as a startup founder you need to be on you know your competition. And then people started um asking me questions. It turned into the newsletter. So yes, I every week I'm reading, I'm trying to understand what it means for me as I'm building my company, what it means for everyone else. So the news this morning, as you and I we discussed, were very interesting because Meta acquired Maltbook, and Maltbook is a social network for agents.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

So it was Which is just wild. You guys if you didn't catch that, she's talking about AI agents is an AI generated thing having their own social media. Um, if I got that right.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yes, yes. So obviously prompted by humans, and what was interesting, like we were talking about open AI putting a press release out to uh reach to uh their stakeholders. What founders of Moldbook did brilliantly they had that thing go viral and everyone tried it, everyone uh put their agents, there were screenshots on um X and everywhere else, and that's what led to the acquisition. And now they're part of Meta's um superintelligence unit, um business unit. So what is interesting is all those acquisitions because Meta acquired uh Moldbook, great match, I see, because social network, they also acquired Manaus, which is an agent, and they're gonna integrate it in their platforms because um helping with ads and things like that. So in OpenClaw is a little bit more hardware dependent. So you run this agent on um low-cost hardware and it does different digital tasks because open AI is still figuring out who they are, what they are. Google knows what they are. Yeah, they do, and they understand, and and that's why Google has their own chips, right? TPUs. And OpenAI understands that hardware is gonna be their limitation, so they're trying to figure out

Meta Buys Agent Social Network

SPEAKER_00 19:23

where they're gonna go. They partnered with you know the new chip company, Cerebrus, they might acquire them, who knows, right? So um, but that's you know, interesting where the companies are going and who are they acquiring because they have a strategy and they need to deliver value to stakeholders.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I think a lot of people, unless you've been in the business or you worked with a lot of tech companies, or it just I think it just depends on the level of of involvement you have in business. People don't acquire things just because, oh, look how look at the cool new present. Let's go buy it, you know. And not that that doesn't happen, but if somebody's acquiring something really expensive, you can bet your backside um that it's part of their long-term strategy, or in this case, shid mid-uh uh term policy because mid-term, um, because uh the things are moving so fast that having a long-term plan, I mean, I think it's kind of like a it's like a castle in the sky, but you're not sure if you're ever going to keep go heading that way because you might turn the mountain the next uh the next day. Um yeah, lots of interesting stuff. Um uh there's two things that are on my mind that uh uh that I'd love to touch on before we uh after we get done talking about Apple's acquisition, and that would be um uh the technology that's being developed to deal with um the water and the water issue uh with the amount of water that's being basically poisoned um to keep up with the AI uh uh race. There are two things I'd love to talk on, but before we get to that, Apple uh made a massive, it was actually the second most expensive acquisition after Beats headphones um in the history of the company. They made an acquisition this week of QAI out of Israel. And for those of you who have not heard this news, Apple acquired QAI, which is basically being called a mind reading um uh technology because it what it's doing is studying your microfacial expressions and movements and fidgets and all of that stuff uh to understand what you're actually thinking. And um and I think that's really can be really fascinating when you think of it in terms of the practical uses. But I'm actually um personally, you know, I'm one of those who is a huge supporter of AI, but when I'm concerned about something and how it could get because there's not a lot of care going on and how these things are getting out there, that we don't have regulations. So if somebody puts something out um that has the potential for long-term damage, there's no there's no bumpers in place to actually prevent that. And so my concern with this is that it's actually just an intent reading software. That's how it will be used. We'll start out with it predicting whether or not you're hungry, and then it'll send you an ad for DoorDash. Um, um, or it's studying you when you get upset with your husband, and they're like, oh, send off the alarm bells, looks like she's gonna kill him finally. Uh, I don't know. What do you you know, maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but what

Apple’s QAI And Intent Reading

SPEAKER_01 22:18

are your thoughts on this new acquisition from Apple?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

So to me, it's facial recognition 2.0. And we if we look at um what happened with facial recognition software five, six years ago, Microsoft shot their unit down, and I believe maybe Google as well. And again, it happened five, six years ago because it was not correct. If I remember the data point correctly from five years ago, it um scanned US congressmen, and twenty seven of them who were b people of color, they were identified as criminals.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Oh, that's terrible. I think I vaguely remember this from the news because there's racism built into the there there's racism and sexism built into the the LLMs. Exactly. Patriarchy's in there.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, yeah. Bias by a hundred percent. Um, so and so to me it's time will tell. They obviously with all these acquisitions, they're making bets. So they have the money, they're making the bet that it's gonna be technology that's gonna help them with their company.

Bias In AI And Women’s Safety

SPEAKER_00 23:47

So to me, because I was thinking about it, it's um cultural dependency of facial expressions, because for for us, you know, um Americans or Europeans, like I'm an Eastern European, when we say yes, we go like this, right? For Indians they go like this, and how many nuances like this, depending on the culture? So if it was programmed, because most of the LLMs they programmed on Western civilization, culture, books, research, how is it gonna read minds and facial expressions and how it's gonna interpret if you didn't train it on the particular expressions of a particular culture or tribe?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Ooh, that's a very good point, Eugenia. Of course, you came with the goods. What a brilliant point, and that certainly makes me feel a lot better. I do believe that we will have my I mean, well, I I believe mind reading software probably are. I mean, my mind reading technology already exists, and and that's evident in um uh grok XAI. I can't remember the name of the company um where they've putting the implant. I'm forgetting the name of it. They're putting the implant in, and then the people are thinking and giving orders to their their their wheelchair or whatever it is, and they can read it. Um, they have also proven that they can put transfer a dream from one person to another, which is frightening. Um uh I believe there'll be people we're gonna be dealing with uh with ideas and thoughts being planted in people's heads. I mean, come on, how are they gonna stop themselves when you go into the case? It's already happening, so it's already happening.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

It's already, you know, social media, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's already happening, so it's not gonna be in front of our face.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

It's gonna be For me, it's it's the most terrifying scenario with that is like we know it's gonna happen, but um, it's things like pilots. Like they're gonna have to be coming up with a lot of shield technology to prevent. So anyway, I'm I'm bouncing around because I found this topic fascinating. You can probably talk about it for hours. Um, I did want to tell one thing when you were talking about the the prejudices being in in technology, uh, some a couple things that I've noticed. Um, one, I I am I'm so tired of using any uh generative uh platform to create an image of women and having them be sexualized. It is it is about 80% of the images that come out of there. I could ask for a bog witch and she's gonna come out with a push-up bra. And I can say, please make her middle age, and they will either have a photo of somebody who looks all of 18 or she will look like she's on her deathbed. Um, and that and also um something that that I find interesting is um as a woman, I changed my name. And like with Google, uh, I have three three different per personalities. It's probably close to the truth. Uh I've got the Cynthia Shrednicky, which is the person who worked in marketing and PR, a bunch of like celebrity photos and stuff. That's my when I was married. Um, and then I've got um my name, and then I've got my spiritual avatar, which is a pen name I use. And so you can actually find me in three different ways and different photos and everything. But as a woman, it it disturbs me that that none of no thought has ever been given to the the lives of women and how they differentiate from men and how that actually affects what what happens there. Like, you know, the fact that when they did all like when they go hoovered up a lot of the photos, I honestly think a lot of the tech pros when they for when they first started doing this, they set the precedent for what the look of a woman is because all of those images uh look like they just came out of a video game. The the curvature, if you will, and the overly, you know, everything. It looks just like it came out of a video game. And then um, and then that whole issue with with being able to track who someone is. Do you think that's gonna change with like for women in particular? Like I I have three personalities on social media, I mean on social media on search engines. Um, is that something that will change with uh with AI?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So I uh so um as a technologist, I think because they can map your you know, your face, your achievements. So yeah, they can if they look for Cynthia, the uh PRI agency owner, you know, they could say all, you know, and she's also known as this and this. And you can train the you know LLM because once in a while I would go on each of the LLMs and I would ask about me, you know, and if it's not the correct answer, I would give the correct answer because obviously it goes, you know, um that's how you train them. So that is possible to train them, and it's also possible for them to see uh the three aspects, three you know, personalities of you. Um for the sexual aspect that that is my concern as well, and that's why I don't generate a lot of images without giving them the picture. I would upload if I need some graphic generated with me, I would give my picture because in the past I got blessed with you know assets that I you know I don't I don't need, don't want, right? So and unfortunately it's you know it's happening and it's retraining it. So um because um when it started, um January T FA got introduced to us three and a half years ago, it was way worse. Now it's getting better, and hopefully um hopefully it will get better because I believe that you know tech bros, um whatever we want to call them, men in technology, right? You see, men in technology, because there's women in technology, men in technology, right? Let's separate. Um they eventually will realize, you know, that that's not how it sh should be. Um that that's just my hope.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, yeah. I think it may be too late at that point. You know what I mean? It seems like they always realize these things like, oh, I don't know, them being uh seeming seemingly oblivious to the fact that their pri our pri all Americans' privacy was being sold out to everybody in the world for a dollar. Uh you know, I'm sorry, I don't have a ton of respect for some of the most well-known tech bros because as somebody who worked in marketing and PR since you know the late 90s, I watched and not only watched, I was part of that. I remember when Google first started, it was you know something I was trying to teach it how to think about all of my clients. And uh, this is when there was you'd get nothing when you'd stick it in there. And I've watched them uh cavalierly destroy privacy and use that information to uh mentally manipulate and emotionally manipulate uh audiences and without thought, which is one of the reasons why I love AI, but I have these conversations all the time because they have such a history of not caring about the impact that it has on humanity or like the jobs. Like they thought the tech companies thought nothing about destroying American uh jobs by shipping out tens of thousands or actually probably 10 million jobs at the end of the 20 years. Um they thought nothing doing that. And uh and then that makes me worry a little bit. So I'm going out about this, but it does. It's just it's an issue for me. Um before we go, though, I did want to um I did want to ask your thoughts about uh the water situation and the cooling down of the you know the data centers and how they're gobbling up electricity, driving up bills, killing you know, whole whole amounts of water or tons of water. And and I think there's been some new new technology come out this week or recently to help deal with this situation.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

So uh, yes, and going back to like your statement, I'm a uh though I'm a girl from Russia, grew up in communist Russia, I'm an eternal optimist. So I see the younger generation like Gen Z. They don't spend as much time on social media, they don't want creative jobs to disappear, so they use AI very sparingly. Um, and I see it in interns or um for my company, and I see it in my son and his friends. So there's hope there. They're not as much on social media, they put filters on and tech bros. I hopefully will have more tech women building companies, and AI is giving more women uh g gives

Data Centers Power Water And Rates

SPEAKER_00 33:19

women a level playing field. So, and today there were two women in AI, one of them is Mira Murati from Open AI, they got big amounts of funding, so it is happening.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

And here you're kind of I gotta be honest with you, I feel like it's like you're hearing that same name as somebody who got lots of money. I feel like they pick a couple people to make it look good, but when you really look at the statistics and the data behind the funding, I mean it's less than two percent last year went to women-led businesses. Less than two percent, folks. Did you hear that? Less than two percent of all venture capital funding goes to women-owned companies. However, statistically, there's a 51% chance of a company being successful if it has a female founder.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So, yeah, I think it's set up to 70%. So, and guess how many goes to founders over 50 like me?

SPEAKER_01 34:17

There's no data. There's no data, yeah. Uh yeah, they don't care. Yeah, yeah. They think they think the only people can do interesting, exciting things have have either just dropped out of college or or just graduated. I mean, like, you see that there's real eight. That's another one is the ages. Um it's interesting. Yeah, I I worry about the data centers a little bit, but I'm also I'm also positive enough to know that they can see like you, you it's not sustainable, but I don't understand how like just on another note, how is it legally possible for all of these electric companies and water companies to be dumping the costs of AI data centers on regular people? Because people are getting the single individuals living in a household outside of a data center are getting electric bills that are fifteen hundred dollars for an apartment. Like it's craziness, it's not sustainable, but I don't understand how that's even legal. Like why why is it like are these trillion-dollar companies not paying for this?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

So you're 100% right. And last week there was this direction from the White House rate payer um guarantee or pledge, all these big companies they signed that two things they signed. One is uh not to raise the prices on the neighboring towns and cities. Um, and number two, if they even don't use the electricity, they still have to pay for it. So there is um the government in the US realizes it, notices it, and they try to regulate it. They don't regulate AI much, they because you know they're afraid of it's gonna st uh stall the innovation. I agree that what you said with the rates that needs to be regulated because it's affecting uh regular people and Americans.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

And they're already getting crushed while simultaneously watching billions be spent on a war they weren't expecting. Which is not a statement on the politics of that war. So just more like the American people keep getting shafted. Americans do, they keep they keep repeatedly getting shafted, they keep getting given sold a bunch of promises, and yet the the AI race is being being uh born on their backs with job losses and the cost of everything going through the roof. Um it's it's you know, I try and I'm sorry, I'm I can be I can be a little harsh. I do believe in the positive side of things, but I also believe in stating the facts about things and putting them in in the tone in which they deserve to be mentioned, because dressing it up um doesn't allow us to have conversations about how we move forward. And when we don't actually, and one of the things is when we're couching the truth of a situation to make it sound better, then the insistence that we actually have regulations doesn't end up happening because people think it's not that big of a problem.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, and you're right, like for example, software jobs, they're evolving, and computer science that was a very prestigious degree, normal. No, no, useless, yeah. So unless you go into like a specific field like cybersecurity, um and the challenge is again, people like you said, they're trying to cut the costs now without realizing if AI is writing the code and they're not hiring junior developers, and uh middle level developers they review AI's code, and then middle level developers move up to executive jobs, senior developers, there won't be no pipeline. So, two, three years from now, people will realize that, and hopefully there will be a shift because AI, it might be eliminating the jobs now, and it puts people in a very different. I don't dismiss that. If you allow AI to do all those tasks, then you are not gonna grow your strategic pipeline.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

No, no, no, that's actually a good point. Uh yeah, I think I think I'm all for winning the AI race because I get I actually see as a futurist, I see the long-term implications of it across everything from defense to uh to our security as a nation. And and and and I'm I'm I'm hoping that by us succeeding at it on a massive level, we'll be able to move away from our

Jobs Pipeline And The New American Dream

SPEAKER_01 38:53

dependency on China. As somebody worked in fashion-related uh businesses, and not just fashion, I did a lot of things, but fashion was a big part of my career. I watched the absolute destruction of the fashion industry in America, but not just that, they didn't just destroy the fashion, they replaced what was at least well-made product with absolute trash. The vast majority of products that are sold to us now from uh from China are trash. And I have a mad respect for a lot of what they do, but don't think this wasn't part of their business plan. They stopped making nicely made things that they used to in the 80s. They were they moved out all the American manufacturers and what the Walmarts of the world brought in the the cheaply, the cheaper made Asian versions, which everybody got used to. And then the people who owned those companies in Asia were like, Well, we own the market. Why are we making it so nice when we can actually make it something that has to be replaced every six months to a year? And now everything is just badly made. And even the stuff that's being charged as luxury products are many of them are very badly made. And uh, and and understanding that about their willingness to just sell us everly ever increasingly trashy stuff, um, is one of the reasons why so many of our industries got killed here. AI really does serve up the best opportunity that we've had in 25 years to really establish re-establish the American dream, which I think is important not just for America, but for the world.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah, prosperous America is good for the world. Prosperous Europe is good for the world, prosperous Africa is good for the world, 100%. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Well, before before we go, and and let thank you for letting me have that rant. Um, would you please share with our subscribers um listeners what it is that you are currently you know baking in the AI oven?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Sure, sure, sure. So we're launching at the end of April. We're launching at Startup Grind. We were selected as one of 150 startups. So, listeners, there are companies that look at all the founders, and you just need to keep, you know, trying. Um, so what um we identified uh a year ago that many small to medium-sized businesses and enterprises they have a lot of different tools. QuickBooks, Hotspot, your marketing tool, finance tools. None of it talks to one another. They try to make sense of it with AI, they're running into the same issue. AI is just sitting on top of that. So we created a platform where you can connect all your apps, marketing, finance, and then you can get data instead of looking at 10 different apps. You can ask our platform, what was my revenue yesterday? Are my leads uh performing well? Is my payroll um um high this week? Why is it high? So it gives

U Unified AI Product And Closing

SPEAKER_00 41:57

that intelligence to the backbone of America, small to medium-sized businesses, because they never had this intelligence. Now, with our platform, they will have this intelligence, and instead of spending time to reconciling different tops and tools, they can either spend working on their business or they can go to their daughter's soccer game.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Nice, I love that. It's such a wonderful I and I'm familiar with the your work. I it's such a wonderful uh company that you've started. You guys, Eugenia Jordan is the founder of U Unified AI, and they are going to be breaking barriers, particularly not just in their in their industry, but also for Eugene as a female uh thought leader in the AI world. Thank you, Eugenia. Thank you. If you are not already subscribed to Soul Tech with Cynthia, like what are you thinking? It's intelligent listening. You can throw it on when you're you know getting some work done or cleaning the house, and um uh and you can get inspired uh in so many different ways. So please subscribe and share the episode, tell your friends and family about it. Um, if you have not visited my websites to check out my books, I'm a three-time best-selling author, if you didn't know, and uh cultural pioneer. I founded influencer marketing and brand communications, and now I'm on to the next thing. I founded Soltec Foundation, which is what the show is named after. The Soltec Foundation um develops programs and events to help educate underserved communities and ways in which they can thrive in the age of AI. We've got a big initiative coming up to teach AI um literacy to underserved communities. So please go to soltecfoundation.org. And if you want to check out my books, go to CynthiaLelliot.com and you can check them out. And of course, uh see all the other work come up too. Thank you again, Eugenia. You guys have an amazing, amazing week. And uh, you know, you know, make some comments. Let us know what you think.